By NEIL A. LEWIS

Published: March 7, 2007

CORRECTION APPENDED

I. Lewis Libby Jr., the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, was convicted on Tuesday of lying to a grand jury and to F.B.I. agents investigating the leak of the identity of a C.I.A. operative in the summer of 2003 amid a fierce public dispute over the war in Iraq.

Mr. Libby, 56, who once wielded great authority at the top levels of government, is the highest-ranking White House official to be convicted of a felony since the Iran-contra scandals of the 1980s.

The jury rejected Mr. Libby's claims of memory lapses, convicting him of four felony counts, obstruction of justice, giving false statements to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and committing perjury twice before the grand jury. The 11-member jury acquitted Mr. Libby on an additional count of making false statements to the F.B.I.

As the verdict was read aloud by the jury forewoman after nearly 10 days of deliberations, Mr. Libby grimaced briefly before resuming his expressionless demeanor. His wife, Harriet Grant, sitting a few feet away in the spectator section, began shaking visibly and wept briefly before composing herself.

Dana Perino, the deputy White House press secretary, said President Bush watched the news of the verdict on television in the Oval Office. She said Mr. Bush respected the jury's verdict but ''was saddened for Scooter Libby and his family,'' using Mr. Libby's nickname.

Mr. Cheney had a similar reaction. ''As I have said before, Scooter has served our nation tirelessly and with great distinction through many years of public service,'' he said.

The verdict meant the end of a nearly four-year investigation into the leak of the identity of the Central Intelligence Agency officer, Valerie Wilson. The inquiry raised fundamental questions about the reasons for invading Iraq, exposed some of the unseen influence of Mr. Cheney's office and changed the landscape of relations between journalists and official sources, as many of Washington's prominent political reporters were forced to testify in a criminal trial.

Mr. Libby's chief lawyer, Theodore V. Wells Jr., said he would file papers asking the judge to grant a new trial. If that fails, Mr. Wells told reporters, he will appeal the verdict to the federal appeals court. He said Mr. Libby was ''totally innocent and that he did not do anything wrong.''

Mr. Libby, standing at his side, made no comment. Prosecutors had charged that Mr. Libby had lied when he swore that he had not discussed the identity of Ms. Wilson in the summer of 2003 with two reporters, Judith Miller, formerly of The New York Times, and Matthew Cooper, formerly of Time magazine.

The prosecution also said Mr. Libby concocted a story that he learned of Ms. Wilson's identity in a conversation with Tim Russert of NBC News on July 10 or 11 in 2003 to hide the fact that he had already learned about her identity from several fellow administration officials.

One of the 11 jurors who spoke publicly after the verdict said that there was great sympathy for Mr. Libby in the jury room, but that the case presented by the prosecution was overwhelming.

Judge Reggie B. Walton, who presided over the four weeks of testimony and presentation of evidence, set sentencing for June 5. Under complicated sentencing guidelines that are no longer mandatory, Judge Walton has wide discretion in setting a prison term.

But lawyers not involved in the case who are experienced in the issue of sentencing calculated that under the guidelines, Mr. Libby might be sentenced to 20 to 27 months.

Judge Walton allowed Mr. Libby to remain free on bail. The defense's plans to ask for a retrial and then appeal the verdict mean that it would be many months before Mr. Libby would be required to go to prison. It also would provide a window for Mr. Bush to pardon Mr. Libby, an issue about which the White House has been silent but one that quickly became a topic of speculation.

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, issued a statement calling on Mr. Bush to promise that he would not ''pardon Libby for his criminal conduct.''

Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the prosecutor, said that while gratified by the verdict, ''it's sad that we had a situation where a high-level official, a person who worked in the Office of Vice President, obstructed justice and lied under oath.''

In remarks to reporters outside the courthouse, Mr. Fitzgerald also addressed at length the criticism of his decision to prosecute Mr. Libby on charges of lying to investigators while not charging anybody with leaking Ms. Wilson's name to reporters.

Ms. Wilson's name first appeared in a column by Robert Novak on July 14, 2003, just days after The New York Times published an Op-Ed article by her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV.

In his article, Mr. Wilson asserted that the Bush White House had willfully distorted intelligence about Iraq's efforts to acquire uranium in Africa to bolster the case for going to war.

Testimony at the trial showed that Mr. Wilson's criticisms had alarmed and angered Bush administration officials because they amounted to a direct attack on what had been the principal reason for invading Iraq: the claim that Saddam Hussein had an active program of developing unconventional weapons.

Critics said Ms. Wilson's identity as a C.I.A. officer was leaked to punish her husband for his criticisms.

Correction: March 8, 2007, Thursday
A front-page article yesterday about the conviction of I. Lewis Libby Jr. on charges of lying to a grand jury and to F.B.I. agents investigating the leak of the identity of a C.I.A. operative in 2003 misstated the middle initial of the presiding judge in some copies. He is Judge Reggie B. Walton, not Judge Reggie M.